It was an absolute pleasure meeting Veronica Crosa from Travel Counsellors today. We exchanged Corporate War stories – and no wonder we are awesome entrepreneurs today!
I was very lucky to have a powerhouse Monday to start my week. I dealt with some things that were bothering me, picked up a new Workshop Client, passed 4000+ likes on Facebook and met with an Awesome Travel Counsellor by the name of Veronica Crosa.
Veronica and I were lucky to meet up today for Chocolate & Business where we spoke about Business Networking and our own days in the Corporation.
We strangely had some very similar stories in terms of us really being “Screwed Over” in many situations throughout our careers.
Sure, we had some great times – however, we also had some really bad times that inspired us to really start our own businesses. We compared stories of “Great Bosses” & “Not Great Bosses” and the negative impact that some of these people have had on our lives.
In my case, I have had evil colleagues, spinless bosses and stupid reward & measurement systems that punished my hard work and honourable commitment. Our conversation got even funnier when we shared examples of what happened to us.
What I think was tragic was the good times we had and how much Veronica and I dedicated our lives to the Corporate Workplace. We both were massive high achievers and I guess some people just don’t like that (thank god we both had some good bosses at the time!).
One of my key bad experiences was when I was promised basically – “Achieve X and we shall give you Y”. I remember in my case, I was a Marketing Manager (in a very early job) and I had these aggressive Sales & Project Deadlines to meet. The deal was that if I did – I would get an increase to my funding and a new staff member.
Quite the opposite happened in my case. My only staff member was taken for “Other Projects”, stressed out and then quit on leave. Then the evil bosses I had decided that I could do “My job on my own” and totally backed out on the deal they had with me.
It was very hurtful and I recall going from star employee – to someone who didn’t care anymore. I used up my sick leave, worked as little hours as possible and did nothing social with the team. It felt great and it was my chance to take back a bit of freedom after all the years they oppressed and took advantage of me.
What I find incredibly interesting about stories like I had, some of the bad things people have done to Veronica and many of my business friends – are the endless stories of “Corporate Machines” taking advantage of everyones good nature. People would dedicate their lives to a company, to get really shafted at the end of the day.
My advice? Don’t get angry like I did for years. Just leave! Find a great business, start it, move on and forget about what the Corporation had done to you. This was some of the best thinking of my life which changed it for the better.
The truth was that I have had some great bosses – pity they were in a minority in my old working days! Love your work and thank you for the read!
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